Love Like This (Will End In Tragedy)
by IsoldeOfIreland
Summary: Five times Ava and Connor comfort each other (and one time they don't).
1. Aftermath

**Note:** Hey guys! So I finally got around to cross-posting this from AO3. This first chapter is set after 3x18 ("This Is Now").

**Content warning:** Mentions of a mass shooting.

* * *

He's double-checking the lock on the door—he's pretty sure he locked it but he's also been up for 30 hours and, a minute ago, had been pretty sure there was a chair right behind him. (Turns out the chair hadn't been there and he'd ended up on the floor.) 

So he's right on the other side of the door when he hears the knock. A jarring sound, loud against the quiet of the apartment. Connor checks the clock: a quarter to midnight. He can't think of anyone who'd be at his door at this hour, and after the day he's just had all he wants to do is lie down in his big, comfy bed and sleep. He's probably imagining the knock like he imagined the chair. 

But whoever is at the door knocks again, hesitantly this time, and he can't write it off as a hallucination of his too-tired brain. It occurs to him as he's opening the door that he forgot to check the peephole and please, please let it not be an axe murderer because he doesn't think he can deal with one right now. Connor opens the door and—

"Ava." He takes in the sight of her. Blonde hair disheveled, skin paler than usual. She raises a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear and it shakes, a little. "What's wrong? Are you hurt?"

After all the death he's seen today, his first instinct is to scan her for potential injuries, eyes moving over her lightning-fast and on the verge of panic. He's never been particularly religious and it's been years since he's prayed. Still he finds himself thinking, _Please God, not her. Take whatever you want but not her, not her, not her._

(Because things between them are complicated, have always been complicated, and maybe it feels like they're constantly stuck in a holding pattern, but he cares about this maddening woman more than he can admit.)

Ava shakes her head, opens her mouth to speak but a sob comes out instead. She brings her hands up to her face, flustered. "I'm sorry, I'm—I didn't know where else to go. I—"

"Hey. Hey, it's okay. Come in." He fights the urge to hug her, placing a hand on her shoulder and guiding her in instead. Something about her looking so vulnerable makes him want to hold her.

Connor guides her to couch, watches as she sits down and seems to curl into herself. "First mass shooting?"

A nod. She makes a half-hearted attempt to wipe away her tears.

"Wanna talk about it?"

"No, I—" Ava takes a deep, shuddering breath. "I can't stop seeing it."

He moves over to sit next to her, rubs soothing circles on her back. She's shaking and he's not quite sure what to do for her—he feels like one of those clowns in the circus trying to put out a raging fire with a watering can—so he gets her a glass of water and watches as she drinks it numbly, her movements mechanical.

It's a long while before she says anything else, though she starts and stops and tries to speak again.

"He wasn't old enough to read yet." Quietly. When he tilts his head to look at her she's staring intently at the carpet, eyes a little unfocused.

"This little boy today. Cody. Blonde hair, so, so tiny." She stops, and her voice shakes when she speaks again. "Massive internal bleeding, unconscious. And he was clutching this alphabet primer. He died on the way up to surgery, and his mom—"

Her voice breaks. Connor takes her hand and Ava blinks, as if she had forgotten he was there. Slowly, she looks up from the carpet and meets his eyes. "His mom said he was just learning his letters. They were in the park and she was teaching him his letters and now he's dead."

"So much death and what's the point?" Ava shakes her head, "God, I sound so pathetic. I know it's part of the job."

"No, not pathetic. Human."

She looks away then, lips quivering—she's stronger than this, she will not cry again, but the expression in his eyes is so soft and she doesn't think she can look at him without tearing up.

"Ava, hey, look at me." She does, reluctantly, and her eyes are the color of honey and full of pain. "You're right. It's part of the job. But that doesn't make what happened today any less wrong."

She hugs him then, surprising him, and all he wants is to make her pain go away, but he knows that's beyond his power so he just holds her tight and strokes her hair. At some point she stops shaking, relaxing against him, and her breathing evens out. Connor eases away slowly, until he can look her in the eyes.

He tilts his head slightly, hands still rubbing her arms gently. _You okay?_

Connor can read the answer in her eyes, a little red but no longer full of pain, and the way her lips tilt up at the corners in the hint of a smile. "Thank you," she says quietly, eyes never leaving his. After a second she adds, "I should go."

"Stay." He doesn't realize what he's saying until the word leaves his mouth, and his heart skips a beat in surprise. "Please."

She blinks, brows furrowing slightly, feet already angled towards the door. Her weight shifts to the balls of her feet like a wild animal considering bolting, and he finds himself compelled to add, softly, "I don't want to be alone tonight."

Her gaze softens.

(They sleep entwined in each other's arms, Ava in one of his shirts, her head on his chest. Her thumb caresses his arm in slow, comforting patterns, until the steady sound of his heartbeat lulls her to sleep.

And he manages, somehow, to focus on how Ava feels comfortingly warm in his arms and on the way her hair smells like cinnamon. He manages not to think about what they're doing, to ignore the memory of the last time he'd fallen asleep all tangled up in someone and how he'd gotten his heart broken, then.

Because somehow—with the whole world upside-down and wrong, with senseless shootings and children dying before they're old enough to read—this is the only thing that feels right.)


	2. Nightmare (Part 1)

**Content warning:** nightmares, trauma, car crash

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Connor learns other fun facts about her over the next few months. That her feet are always cold and she likes wearing fuzzy socks in an attempt to warm them up. That she collects weird last names like other people collect stamps or coins, writing them down in a notebook. That she treasures her mother's recipe books and brings them out when she's homesick. (He watches as she runs her fingers over the handwritten pages, feather-light, like she's afraid her touch will ruin them.)

He learns that she hates being late for things, even useless staff meetings ("Hey, they're not useless! I'm sure they have a purpose!" "Yeah, they're trying to make us learn how to sleep with our eyes open.") That she likes black pens better than blue ones. That she drinks her coffee black and pours yogurt on her cereal and dislikes sweets but loves chocolate and thousands of other little facts.

He learns other, not so fun facts. That she was in the passenger's seat during the car crash that killed her mother and in her dreams she's still there, unable to move, frozen as her mother bleeds out next to her. That sometimes she'll wake screaming from dreams of blood and far-off sirens, still hearing her mother's voice.

("So, are we gonna talk about last night?"

She looks at him blankly, takes a sip of coffee. "Hmmm?"

"Ava, you woke up screaming. You were terrified."

"Oh that. I'm sorry I woke you." She pours more yogurt into her cereal before continuing nonchalantly, "If it happens again you can just wake me up and go back to sleep. I'm used to calming myself down.")

He learns the nightmares are worse when she goes to bed anxious or stressed, and they'll go away when she feels safe.

(He feels her stiffen as he cuddles up to her one night.

"I'm still mad at you."

He raises his eyebrows incredulously—as if to ask and you think I don't know that? —then remembers she can't see his expression.

"Yeah, well, if I don't hold you you'll wake up screaming again and neither of us will get any sleep."

"Ah, so this is about your sleep."

"Obviously. What did you think it was about? Now shh. We can argue about it in the morning.")

On the worst nights, she dreams of home.

Brilliant blue skies. Towering mountains on the horizon. The sound of waves in the distance is so familiar it makes her heart ache to hear it again. And her mother, her hands on the steering wheel, blonde hair blowing in the wind and she's saying something but it sounds so far-off and Ava can't make it out no matter how hard she listens.

"Mom? Can you hear me?"

"Ava." Her mother turns her head, and it seems to Ava that—for a second, at least—she can really see her.

"Mom, listen to me. There's a car coming. Look at the road!"

But it's already too late. It's night all of a sudden and the headlights are right in front of them and—

Pieces of sky and grass and gravel and—

The world is upside down.

Her mother screaming. The smell of burnt chemicals and gasoline. _Ava_. She turns her head to the side and sees blood, so much blood, gushing out of her mother's neck and—_Ava_—oh God there's something metal impaled there and "It's ok, Mom. Don't move."

But her mother doesn't answer. And everything is so, so quiet. _Ava_. Then sirens, and smoke. Her lungs are burning. _Wake_—

The seat belt digs into her flesh and it won't let her move but she has to do something goddammit. Her mother's eyes are turning glassy. Someone is screaming and she thinks it might be her because she knows what comes next and—

"Ava! Come on, wake up. Wake up!"

The world rushes back with dizzying speed and the first thing she sees is the cracked paint on the spinning ceiling and oh God where is she this is not her room. Her chest feels tight as she looks around the darkened room and tries to distinguish dream from reality.

Then suddenly someone grips her shoulders. Her first instinct is to push them off, to fight back, but she can barely breathe much less move.

"It's me. It's Connor. You're ok." She focuses on that, on his eyes frowning at her in concern and his hands on her shoulders. Her chest is burning, heavy no matter how many breaths she takes.

"Hey. Hey. Ava, slow it down. You're ok, just slow it down."

She pulls in air, lungs burning with the effort, then struggles to hold it before letting it out. She focuses on his eyes—blue, as blue as the ocean back home but no, don't think of home—and the way he's rubbing her back soothingly.

He keeps talking to her—words she doesn't really register—and, slowly, the weight eases. The burning stops. Ava takes a few deep breaths, trying to center herself again.

After a minute she says, "I woke you up again. I'm sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry for." He's watching her closely, trying to assess if she's actually okay now.

Ava catches him looking at her and manages a smile. "I'm fine now. Go back to sleep," she pleads, clearly with no intention of doing so herself.

He raises his eyebrows slightly but doesn't contradict her. "You're cold," he says instead, rubbing his hands up and down her arms, "And you're shaking."

"Oh." Ava frowns in confusion, expression so perplexed it makes him smile.

"Come here," he pulls her to him and she surprises him by kissing him lightly before cuddling up to him, head on his chest. Connor pulls the blanket up over her legs then starts tracing patterns on her arm absentmindedly.

"Connor, I'm—"

"If you say 'sorry'—"

"No." A pause, then she continues, "I could do it on my own, you know. I've calmed myself down after nightmares for years."

His hand stills on her arm. "I know. Do you want me to—"

"No, listen." She sits up to look him in the eyes, continues, "I don't know if I could do it alone now. And that should scare me more than it does."

Ava watches as the look on his face changes to one of puzzlement, like he's trying to figure out where this is coming from, and shakes her head in frustration, "I'm not saying it right."

"Ok. You need space, is that what you're trying to say?"

"I think I'm in love with you."

To her surprise, Connor starts laughing. She feels her cheeks heat up in embarrassment. (Laughter is an answer in itself, isn't it? And he's right. She should have known better than to let herself fall in love with him when she's known all along this was never meant to be serious. She's avoided leaving her things in the drawer he cleaned out for her, dancing around it with little excuses and distractions, so how did she let herself fall for him? Stupid. Careless. But now she'll pay the price for it.)

Ava gets up, cheeks flaming, trying to keep the tears in check. When she gets to her car she can cry—alone where no one can see her—but she's already embarrassed herself enough here.

"Wait, where are you going?"

She looks around the room, frantically trying to locate her shoes in the dark. "Can't find my shoes," she mumbles.

"Hey, Avey, wait!" He grabs her hand to stop her, holds onto it as she tries to shake him off. "I'm sorry. Of course I'm in love with you too. I didn't mean to—I just wasn't expecting that. I mean, I thought you were trying to give me the boot."

She finally turns to face him and the first thing he sees is her bewildered frown. "Why would I give you a boot?"

Connor grins at her, gives her a quick peck on the lips and another on the forehead. "God, I love you."

"American idioms," Ava shakes her head in confusion, then narrows her eyes at him. "Don't think I've forgiven you for laughing at me."

"Not even for a minute."

"Good." She smiles, unable to hold it back, and he responds by kissing her.

"The paint on your ceiling is cracking a little," she murmurs later, half-asleep in his arms.

He frowns, sleep-muddled brain not quite making sense of her words. "Shhh, go to sleep. We'll fix it in the morning."

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**Note:** Thanks for reading! Since this chapter turned out to be huge, I split it into two. The second part of it will be published as chapter 3. (And in that chapter we will see Ava comforting Connor!)


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